1. Field
The present invention relates to communication technologies and, more particularly, to terminal devices and communication methods adapted to communicate speech signals.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a speech recognition process, failure in recognition occurs in the presence of ambient noise or if the sound is too small. Repetition of speech recognition processes may also result in failure in recognition. In particular, if an operator does not know a reason for failure in recognition, failure in recognition is likely to be repeated. In order to prevent this, a reason for failure in recognition is communicated to an operator (e.g., patent document 1).
[patent document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-112497
Generally, a speech recognition is performed on a speech signal carrying speech data. Meanwhile, the sound heard by a receiver of speech is configured by parameters such as on/off of an equalizer, sound volume level output from a speaker, and on/off of speech speed transformation. For this reason, the sound heard by the receiver of speech may differ from the speech signal. Even if the sound reproduced from the same speech signal is heard, the way that the sound is heard may differ depending on the receiver of speech. It is therefore desired that a speech recognition process be performed depending on the situation of the receiver of speech.